First-ever musically complete cast recording of ‘Fiddler’ is released

The new cast recording from “Fiddler On the Roof” is musically complete.

The new cast recording from “Fiddler On the Roof” is musically complete.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Photo: Contributed Photo

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The new cast recording from “Fiddler On the Roof” is musically complete.

The new cast recording from “Fiddler On the Roof” is musically complete.

Photo: Contributed Photo

First-ever musically complete cast recording of ‘Fiddler’ is released

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For the first time in its 55-year history, a musically complete cast recording of “Fiddler on the Roof” was released Friday.

The collection includes 11 songs in English that were cut from the original Broadway production in 1964. It is available for streaming and download via Time Life.

The collection is also notable for its use of Yiddish lyrics, the authentic language of the play’s shtetl, or village.

Featuring the 2018 cast of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s groundbreaking production, “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish: The 2018 Cast Recording” also includes new recordings of songs from the show that never made it into the 1964 Broadway production, sung by theatrical legends including original “Fiddler” lyricist Sheldon Harnick. All the bonus tracks are in English.

Since its debut in July 2018, “Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish” has won the 2019 Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Revival; the Drama Desk Award for Best Musical Revival; a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award Special Citation; and star Steven Skybell was the winner of the 2019 Lucille Lortel Award for Best Lead Actor.

“I am thrilled that this new production is now memorialized in this wonderful recording,” said Joel Grey, who directs the current stage production. “When Zalmen Mlotek (NYTF Artistic Director) approached me, with my dear friend Hal Prince’s ringing endorsement, with the suggestion that I should direct NYTF’s Yiddish version of ‘Fiddler,’ I was intrigued by the prospect of taking on a quintessential work of the American Broadway stage translated into its underlying language - the true language of Anatevka.”

Grey not only agreed to direct the production, he also sings “When Messiah Comes” on the new cast album.

The album was produced by seven-time Grammy and Tony nominee Robert Sher (“Gypsy,” “Annie,” “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying,” “Fela!,” “Ain’t Misbehavin’ ”).

“This is the first time that a ‘Fiddler’ cast album is musically complete,” explains Sher. “All of the dance music, entrance, exit and scene change music is in here. It’s never been done before in the show’s 55-year history and we really wanted to give the listener a full experience.”

Particularly notable are two cast members from the 1971 film adaptation: Rosalind Harris (Tzeitel) and Neva Small (Chava), two who appeared in the original Broadway cast in 1964: Joanna Merlin, Austin Pendleton and “Fiddler” lyricist Sheldon Harnick. The new album gives them the opportunity to finally release these songs that were written for, but not included in, the original Broadway production.

“Fiddler on the Roof” first opened on Broadway on Sept. 22, 1964, a musical that took audiences inside a Russian shtetl in 1905 during a period of great violence, oppression and expulsion. The play won nine Tony Awards during its eight-year run and has returned to Broadway five times since.

In July 2018, the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene mounted the Yiddish production of “Fiddler” in New York City, accompanied by English and Russian subtitles. It has been extended multiple times and will run until at least Jan. 5, 2020.

The new production “…offers a kind of authenticity no other American ‘Fiddler’ ever has…the language of Tevye and his neighbors would have spoken in Anatevka,” the New York Times reported.